Minnesota United shuts out Sporting Kansas City in regular-season home finale

With Tani Oluwaseyi gone to Spain and Kelvin Yeboah out injured, Minnesota United had to wonder where the goals might come from Saturday night.

The answer, seemingly as always this season, was an unlikely source: left back Anthony Markanich.

Never known as a scorer at any point of his career, Markanich scored twice Saturday night to lead Minnesota United to a comfortable 3-0 victory over struggling Sporting Kansas City. It gave the 25-year-old Markanich 12 goals this season for the Loons in all competitions, tying him for the team lead — with the departed Oluwaseyi — in non-penalty goals.

“Everyone was asking how I keep doing it after the game,” Markanich said. “I mean, I don’t even know how I keep doing it.”

Said Loons coach Eric Ramsay: “I think Anthony really uses that element of unpredictability well, and it’s no mean feat to find himself in those positions and then score so regularly, because the chances that he takes aren’t always easy. So yeah, it was another remarkable night for a player that’s come on leaps and bounds over the course of this year.”

It’s not completely accurate to say that absolutely nothing happened in the first quarter of this match, but it’s not completely inaccurate either. And with Sporting KC playing five defenders and three midfielders, inviting the Loons to step outside their comfort zone and try to break down the defense with the ball, there had to be a few fans starting to wonder where a Loons goal might come from.

Of course, whether the Loons can break down a defense or not, they can always depend on a set piece.

San Diego’s 4-2 comeback victory at Houston meant the Loons still trail San Diego by two points at the top of the Western Conference — and the teams behind them aren’t exactly far behind, either.

Vancouver and Los Angeles FC both play Sunday, and they have three and four games remaining in the season, respectively. Given Vancouver is only a point behind the Loons, and LAFC is five back, the Loons might be in second place only temporarily.

Still, Saturday night’s victory did mean the Loons clinched home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

With Yeboah missing, the Loons switched to an old-school formation, rolling out a classic 4-4-2 setup with Robin Lod and Pereyra as the strikers. It’s perhaps not the team’s preferred way of playing, but the tandem clicked in the 59th minute. Pereyra slipped a pass to Lod on the left, then, when goalkeeper John Pulskamp could only parry the shot, Pereyra pounced on the rebound and roofed it for the game’s second goal.

“I felt like it worked really well without us compromising too much of what we’ve done so far, and that was a very recognizable Minnesota team, I would say, in spite of the fact that there were players playing in very unrecognizable positions,” Ramsay said.

Pulskamp denied a point-blank header from Loons center back Morris Duggan, making it look for a moment as if the visitors had seen off the set-piece threat from the Loons. Instead, Nectarios Triantis picked up the rebound and swung it back into the area, and as has happened so often this year, Markanich was in the right place at the right time to score with his head, yet again.

The defender limped off midway through the second half to a raucous ovation from an appreciative crowd, so in the end it might have been only a near-perfect evening for Markanich.